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discovered what it was her husband did abroad—but they had the effect of laziness rather than of strain. She was about Hilary’s age; her soft contours and smooth dark hair knotted at the nape gave her a look of ripeness which was a matter of poise rather than of shape. In the minor crises of life, Hilary never failed to find her soothing: she hoped she would be in tonight.
    Fatigue making her a little clumsy, she opened the front door with a noisy carelessness which was unlike her, and slapped down her bag and gloves on the table outside the door. The lights were not on yet, but the fire was bright in the big stone fireplace, and it was by this that she saw Mrs. Clare. She was on her knees on the rug, with the fire tongs in her hand; her head and body were turned, in a moment of swift arrested movement, toward the door. Her face was clear in the glow of the flames she had been stirring; lit with a brilliant, incredulous, transforming joy. Hilary paused, suddenly awkward; but next moment Mrs. Clare had seen and recognized her. The unfamiliar face returned, quietly, to familiarity. It was then that Hilary recalled hearing her say once, in her low peaceful voice, “Sometimes he gets back to England at short notice, and just appeals. I never really know.”
    There seemed nothing to say, but Mrs. Clare, as was her way, seemed to require nothing. She said that Hilary had come in at just the right moment, for she had been about to make tea. Hilary said it was just what she had been longing for—which, she discovered, was true—and went up to take off her things.

Chapter Four : “IF HE DIES—”
    T HE PREMATURE BABY WAS DEAD . It had breathed, imperceptibly, through half the night in its oxygen tent, looking, through the transparent cover, like a wax doll in a glass case. In the small hours its heart had failed, and it had died without a movement or a sigh of protest, with no sign at all except a faint blue shadow on the skin.
    Hilary went up to the women’s ward and spent a few minutes with the mother. They talked softly, because the beds of the other women were not far away. Like her child, the mother did not protest. She received Hilary’s consolations meekly. Hilary took, for a moment, her thin rough hand, and felt ashamed of the strength and vitality of her own as if she had offered some insulting ostentation. The mother pressed it, timidly and politely.
    Hilary went slowly downstairs. Habit made her able to shift such things quickly from the surface of her mind, to confine them in protective formulas. Beneath the surface they still worked inward, coloring her mood. She had only one more patient here to see; the Fleming boy. The X-rays were ready in the Matron’s office; holding them to the light, she saw a faint something which might have been a fine frontal crack. At all events, nothing gross. She had better take one more look at him, before putting in the call to Dr. Lowe. And that, she thought, will be that. She crossed the hall to the single ward, and went in.
    Nurse Jones was engaged in giving the patient his midday drink. She had fixed him up quite correctly, high enough to swallow but not high enough to disturb him, and was holding a feeding-cup of Benger’s, taken from a neat little tray with a clean traycloth. She was, Hilary reflected, a conscientious girl. She had not heard the door open, and was coaxing prettily; for all the world, Hilary thought, like a nurse in a film.
    “Now come along, Mr. Fleming. Just a teeny drop. You won’t pick up, you know, if you don’t take your dinner, now will you?”
    The Fleming boy seemed inattentive to all this. He was looking past Nurse Jones and across the room toward the door. Hilary smiled at him, and opened her mouth to speak; but checked in her forward step, because his face had undergone no change at all. At this moment, Nurse Jones popped the spout of the feeding-cup into his mouth; he muttered something blurred and indistinguishable, and moved his head